that reminds me of a joke that most of you have probably heard (i have a knack for that, which is why i seldom tell jokes)

A burgler, upon entering a house, hears a strange voice call out "Jesus is watching you". He hesitates, then moves closer to the source, only to hear again - louder - "JESUS IS WATCHING YOU!!". After a brief pause he creeps again toward the corner from which the voice is emanating, only to find a parrot in a wrought iron (well, actually i don't think the joke mentions wrought iron, but i'm trying to tie in a few threads here) cage. He breathes a huge sigh of relief, then with a chuckle asks the bird his name.

"Diogee", the bird replies (again, this isn't the name that the joke originated with, but i can't recall what it was supposed to be. it's really immaterial. but you are undoubtedly beginning to get a sense of why i rarely tell jokes....).

"DIOGEE??", repeats the burgler, with a derisive laugh. "What kind of an IDIOT would name his bird DIOGEE???", he scoffed, to which the bird replied dryly: "The same idiot that named his rottweiler "Jesus".

I used to breed siamese cats, and the ones we kept mostly had the names of kings and queens. Our queen who died at the ripe old age of 15 in 1997 was called Sirikit. Interestingly, I would have been jailed in Thailand for naming her after a Thai queen. Our tom and his sister (we bought them both at the same time) were called George (King George) and Alexandra (his wife), but quickly became "Red" and "Tortie" - he was a red point siamese and she was a tortoiseshell point. Sirikit became "Skrits" fairly rapidly. We've kept one of her daughters (who is now 16) and she is Chu-Tze (the last Chinese empress), but she is normally called "Choosy" or more commonly "you *%!@# mog!"

My dogs have had an eclectic bag of names. My shepherd bitch was "Elsie", my first keeshond was "Demelza" named after Demelza Poldark from the series and the current one is "Saffie", short for Saffron, named after the hapless daughter in AbFab.

I got the name from a movie about a cat and a dog entitled Milo and Otis. Milo was the cat. (I named him when I was 9. )

When I was 10, my brother and I both got cats from the shelter. Brother and sister cats, as it turned out. I got Joshua (who's name stayed the same) and he got Spock. Thing is, Spock was a girl, and definitely nothing like the Star Trek star, so we named her after a cat from a pet food commercial. Jennifer. We were just kids, and she looked exactly like the cat on the commercial....

Btw, loved the proposed name of Potato for an Irish Setter.

PS... I love the website spell checker. It's great for some laughs. For "Milo", it suggested "Milquetoast" as a possible proper spelling. And for my name it suggested "alien". How did it know?

Dear CK:"I used to breed siamese cats, and the ones we kept mostly had the names of kings and queens" I have read that Siamese cats in temples would attack intruders. Did any of yours display this behaviour? And if so, how did they treat cat burglars?

I have read that Siamese cats in temples would attack intruders. Did any of yours display this behaviour?And if so, how did they treat cat burglars?

You asked for it.

Red, my breeding tom, was a pet first and foremost so we didn't keep him in a cage the way battery breeders do. So, when there was nothing doing at home, like most toms he went to find his own fun. The outcome was that most of the kittens in the neighbourhood were relatives of our kittens. The long ears, Siamese wail and blue eyes were something of a giveaway!

Most of the locals knew Red and knew we owned him. When he was out on vigil singing on fences, he sounded so sad, hungry and downright forlorn that the people whose tabbies he was trying to seduce took pity on him and fed him. I will always treasure the phone calls I received (at different times) from near-neighbours, asking whether there was anything they should or shouldn't feed him ...

We bred for temperament rather than for show-winning physical excellence. While our breeding pair both had pedigrees as long as your arm we sold our cats without papers to good homes quite cheaply. We're still in touch with several of the people who bought them. They've all been long-lived, healthy cats who dote on people.

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